Grid Effect

Kind of a bereft manner to go into an unexpected hiatus on, maybe the writers did this on purpose to leave us without any closure on so many subplots (of which we have to acknowledge in this series, despite it being a comedy). We’re vindictive enough here, we probably would have done the same thing.

None the less, it felt like a vintage, season two Office episode. With the Michael storyline somewhat insular and the rest of the office involved in a B-plot, with a heavy focus on Pam and Jim (in a good way) mutually interacting with their coworkers. We haven’t had one of these in a while.

Let me just say that while the Michael’s testimony at the deposition was hilarious and entirely unrealistic, it was almost unbearable to hear the contents of his diary read aloud, and even more disturbing that his girlfriend would offer it as evidence. Regardless of how much she think it would inoculate her of any fault and help win her lawsuit, given how simpleminded and easily manipulated Michael is, she had to know (and in fact did, hence she brought it with her) how embarrassing the contents of it would be for her supposed beau. At least the stenographer wasn’t asked to repeat its reading.

The comparison to that odd picture he accidentally forwarded to everyone in the office is neither here nor there, since technically they weren’t dating, and ultimately it was an accident. Not that she was aware of that to begin with, but over the course of their courtship I’m sure it’s been explained and accepted. Usually I don’t let this sort of nonsense bother me, but the understanding that Michael may have “got what was coming to him” seems a bit absurd.

The intolerance is visceral.

Still, when Michael knocked over Toby’s lunch tray, I laughed. Just like I did during the “that’s what she said” confusion at the deposition. Somehow then manage to make Michael seem utterly soulless and borderline inhuman, then turn him into a sympathetic character. Probably because he’s mostly well-intentioned, set aside when it comes to Toby, in which case his hatred is completely bizarre and comically unexplainable. The entire plot thread was one of those quality Office “moments” when the dramatic tinge of the episode nicely compliments the comedic.

The B-plot had me in stitches. Particularly with Kelly, who might be one of the better peripheral characters, and her instigation/intimidation of Pam about their boyfriends respective ping-pong skills. The confrontation at the bathroom entrance, the smack talk vs. trash talk explanation (”I hear Jim has to take steroids just to watch baseball”) and the improvisation of that fake punk/pop song after Jim lost yet again to Darryl were all quality moments. The fact that this was final straw for Pam was comical in it’s own right. How does anyone let Kelly get under their skin?

Also, Rainn Wilson took a backseat in this last episode for a good while, but it was a fucking clinic, both for Rainn and for his character. See, Dwight is something of a ping-pong aficionado and his understanding of the game and its history is uncanny. This, of course, was exemplified in his display at the makeshift table that Pam set up in the conference room, and in the battle royale with him and Mose. Dwight’s shock that Jim would try to sell paper to a company employee, as opposed to just realizing that Jim lied to him, suspended disbelief a little too much, but I’ll let it slide because of everything that it accompanied.

On technical note, this was the second week in a row Michael left the office alone to the minions, anyone else sensing a pattern? I am sure Steve Carrell loves working on the series, but if he had the opportunity to focus on films, make ten times more money and work on his own schedule…well, who wouldn’t take advantage of it? If he wants to devote all his time to making sequels and campy family flicks like Dan in Real Life, well, I may understand it, but I don’t have to like it. Besides, while I like his role on the series, its not entirely necessary. I think it can sustain its momentum without Michael Scott. And, if the series creators think otherwise, its been a great run, no shame in hanging it up after four (three and a half?) seasons.

FNL recap later, at its regularly scheduled time.

Well, we’re going to quickly go from overloaded to material-less on the back end of the week here in about ten days. With South Park having one more episode before it goes on hiatus, The Office being plum out of new episodes and being one of the earlier victims of the writer’s strike, and It’s Always Sunny airing its season finale last night … we’re down to Survivor and FNL as the only two series’ we watch at the end of the week, and we have no idea of how much longer the latter will be on board for.

They are expected to have fifteen of the twenty two episodes completed, and their are rumors it might be canceled regardless, but also rumors that ESPN might pick up the series. We’re generally opposed to all of ESPN’s original programming and anything that doesn’t involve PTI and actual sporting events, but we can get on board with the World Wide Leader for this one.

Anyhow, this is neither here nor there. Let’s get to the topic at hand and that’s IASIP third season finale, and a helluva finale it was. Bring back some cameo’s (The waitress, Rickety Cricket), put the bar up for auction on a dance marathon, then see who can withstand the competition and come away with probably the most outstandingly depraved bar on the east coast.

Glenn Howerton was in particularly rare form this episode. From letting the engaged woman drop when she stated she would never sleep with him (after holding her up when Charlie “went limp”), to knocking over The Waitress to dropping the engaged woman’s fiance, it was one of his better performances yet. Especially his response after each person he leveled, particularly the waitress’s:
Waitress: I trusted you Dennis Reynolds!
Dennis: (Smug, amused, self-satisfied expression) Why?
This brief exchange pretty much encompasses their entire relationship.

Actually, all the characters were in rare form last night. Charlie’s psuedo-dance of seduction he rehashed from eighth grade, which actually won him the “dance off” against Dennis, after Dennis beat Mac’s elbow thrusts. Frank was a bit of a side character, but it didn’t stop him from manipulating the contest and determining the winner (after Dee did all the dirty work).

When you see them posed like this, it probably means someone died, and they inadvertently benefited fromit.

And seeing Dee come so close to winning the competition, only to fall short so everyone can disregard everything she says again was almost painful to watch. But, just like her counterparts, it’s hard to feel any sympathy for her with the way she treats Matt (rickety cricket).

There wasn’t really much to the episode other than just putting them in another absurd situation, yet again as a result of Charlie’s illiteracy (It’s ‘prize’, not ‘pride’ Charlie, can’t you see the ‘Z’”?) and have them act it out. Physical comedy played a huge role in this episode, more so than usual, and what would you expect from an episode that revolves around a dance marathon? We probably could have done without the Sklar brothers playing the DJ’s, but they would have just thrown in a couple no names to do the same exact annoying shtick, so either way it doesn’t really matter. We did somewhat enjoy their Entourage cameo though.

Good episode, great season, and they’ve gotten progressively better. which is admittedly somewhat easy, since all they have to do is lower the bar on basic moral standards. The only really bad episode we watched was the hour long special, which in no way needed to be an hour. But this was a great ten episode season and we can only hope the writer’s strike doesn’t knock this series out of commission as well, but we understand if it does.

Back with FNL and Office recaps later.

Didn’t have the time nor the strength to rewatch this episode, so we’re just going to bullet point it from memory here:

-The Reward Challenge was especially unique, or at least I’ve never seen anything like it on the show before. It consists of a tribemate floating around in a teeny wooden raft, while members from the opposing team chuck water into it and attempt to sink the raft. First to two players sunk wins, the reward is going to an ancient village for a meal and some other shenanigans. Oh, and they are picking their teams, with each person picked, picking the next teammate. So, what do they do? They pick along alliance lines, leaving the other alliance back at camp to game plan in the open. The winning team ends up being James, Amanda, JR and Todd, and back at camp ends up being the losing team consisting of Courtney, PG, Frosti and Erik (it took me a solid two minutes to remember his name); and Denise, who went unpicked and was pretty unpleased with the whole ordeal.

-I kind of assumed for them to man up and form a dominant five person alliance here, and blindside James since at least three of them are aware of at least one idol (if not both of them). But no, they meander around and somehow all of this goes unsaid. Sans, PG, who god bless her, couldn’t be anymore transparent or unsubtle.

-On the reward, JR gets his first clue, which I suppose are just handed to the winning team now. And while everyone he’s with knows about the two being found and that James owns both of them, it is just dawning on JR that he never considered a hidden immunity idol as a possibility. The three of them try to keep from laughing, which, I don’t know exactly what Todd and Amanda have to snicker about. They had the whereabouts of two idols and gave them away for nothing. Not exactly a meeting of the minds here.

-As for the reward itself, it’s probably the most historical reward any Survivor season has partook in. And Amanda decided (or unknowingly decided might be more appropriate) to show her entire ass to the quaint little village. Nothing like bringing western culture to a subset of people who probably wanted nothing to do with it. Oh, and JR gets drunk and tongue tied, and refers to the HII as the AII. As in: American Immunity Idol. It’s probably the first time on of the participants on a reality series have ever confused his show with another reality series.

See, its Chinese oriented because the barrels form one of those elongated Dragon thingy’s so prominently associated with Chinese culture.

-At the Immunity Challenge, it’s one of those tailor made for the diminutive participants to try and compensate for all the challenges that will naturally favor larger participants. In other words, it’s a balancing challenge, where they straddle these barrels and water leaks out of them, and as the barrel gets lighter and lighter, the barrel is more and more likely to tilt off it’s axis. Long story short: Todd, Frosti and Courtney are the final three, and Courtney wins without even a semblance of a chance that she might fall, because she’s probably anorexic.

-These contestants (as in, Todd) make these episodes so remarkably tedious and unpleasant to recap, that we might just stop doing the play by play recap until that snooty priss is voted off. In this episode, he wanted to blindside James because James is in sole possession of the two idols that Todd gave him. So, OK, good plan, right? A chance at redemption. Until JR, through a series of coincidences, first thinks he has the idol only to learn that James has both of them, and he approaches Todd with the same plan that Todd himself had thought up earlier. So, one would think this would appeal to Todd’s sensibilities. But no, Todd is offended that someone thought of the same game plan as he did. So Todd sets his sights on voting out JR.

Now, don’t get me wrong, there are a multitude of reasons to vote out JR, both personal and strategical. But this ranks very, very low on the list. Right ahead of he’s taller than me and directly behind he speaks Mandarin.

-At TC, nothing really transpires or is revealed except for some ad hominem and blatant foreshadowing. James doesn’t even bother to bring his Immunity Idols and would have been voted off if Courtney didn’t hate JR so much. He gets three votes from JR, PG and Erik, Denise is the only person to vote for PG (and she has to feel sour about that as well) and the remaining five votes go to JR, who’s sent home and is like the 105th person in a row to give a deluded, self-congratulatory “I’m the greatest player out here, see, they voted me out because I’m such a threat” parting words this season.

Tonight: People might start coming to their senses and everyone begins to hate everybody. With this cast of characters all I can say is its about fucking time.

Feeling slightly better today, though I wouldn’t categorize it as better than shit, I still feel very much like excrement. But still, we came into work today and there isn’t a more leisurely way to spend our time than writing about an animated sitcom.

This was another stellar episode last night. I think everyone can remember being clueless about what makes the opposite sex tick at that age, and they illustrated it well. The highlight of which being the diction the girls used in the council meetings. We have no familiarity with it, but we’ll be damned if it wasn’t funny. Stan’s flummoxed reaction to it all was priceless, we’d definitely have the same deer in headlights look, and we’re twenty-five years old.

Kyle’s crisis of self-worth was quite comical as well, and it kicked off with that slow shot of the camera panning out from the bathroom wall, where he realized he was voted the ugliest boy in the class by all the girls, after being the only boy in the class to insist that it’s meaningless. This also carried-in the Government conspiracy parody with the list council (or whatever the hell it was called). The dialog throughout this was spot-on with such lines as: “I can assure you that this council doesn’t do anything in haste”, “You just couldn’t stop looking, could you?”; and everything involving the council heads and Bebe. After this episode, we’re certain Parker and Stone can parody anything with any storyline you give them.

The inspiration for insecure fourth graders everywhere.

The Abe Lincoln dream sequence was great as a bit of a diversion from the rest of the episode. Kyle rejecting all of his advice, then Lincoln driving him home in a sedan, then Lincoln calling Kyle an asshole when he refuses to reconsider the advice he offered, was a pretty lethal comedy bit. Listening to Abe rationalize why it’s good to be less attractive in adolescence (and adulthood, really) seemed like the writers were lecturing more than anything, “She always believed she was interesting and funny because guys would always tell her how special she is, but it was only because she was hot, when she turned forty she realized she’s about as interesting as a wet carrot”; but we still found it immensely enjoyable. The fact that this only seemed to motivate Kyle to burn the school down only enhanced its comedic value.

All in all, another fine episode to throw in the South Park library. Set aside the first episode with the Tourette’s syndrome there has been something to enjoy about every episode this season. We’re not sure how many more episodes are left in this set, they usually do eight at a time, if that is indeed the case, then we regrettably only have one more episode left before the next hiatus, and seven more left in the eleventh season. I still wouldn’t worry, their contracted for four more seasons after this, so they still have plenty of time to lose “it”.

Survivor recap later today.

Our apologies for the late post, we’re a little under the weather and haven’t yet gotten out of bed. Here’s a few quick links to occupy a portion of your day.

Here’s a random list of the top fifty television icons of all time. Needless to say we adamantly disagree with it, it has George Clooney and Jennifer Aniston in front of James Gandolfini and Jon Stewart. Number one was appropriate though in Johnny Carson. We’re not really sure what the criteria is here, they explain it, but its all kind of vague. It seems that someone like Jennifer Aniston improves her rank by virtue of her off camera issues. Whatever. We’ve already spent entirely too much time thinking about this.

Portia De Rossi claims she is not playing herself on Nip Tuck, which I suppose people might assume because not only is she a lesbian in real life, she’s playing one on TV! And really, I hope she isn’t playing herself, after her role on Arrested Development, there’s no way she is that stupid.

The Wire is releasing a soundtrack that we’re sure at least a hundred people will buy. Will we be one of them? Not sure. We have a habit of buying everything related to the series, but we already have The Pogues greatest hits, and we’re not certain we need five different versions of the series’ opening theme…who are we kidding? Of course we’re going to purchase it, regardless of how needless it is.

Is Survivor: China’s Courtney anorexic? In short: if she isn’t then she is the skinniest girl we’ve ever seen without an eating disorder. Either way, it’s curious that she would even volunteer to be on the show, or that the producers would invite her.

And finally, this actually aired last night, but as HBO is prone to do, it will be replayed a couple thousand times over the course of the next month: their documentary on the Ohio State-Michigan rivalry is absolutely fantastic. It revolves around the ten year Woody Hayes-Bo Schembechler war. Essentially, if you are unfamiliar with it or have never been to one of the games, this is as close as it gets to evoking that atmosphere. Despite how unpopular it is, we’re avid Ohio State supporters around here, and really we’re hard-pressed to admit that nothing has encompassed the pageantry, tradition and insanity of this rivalry quite like that documentary did last night.

That’s it for today, back tomorrow with Survivor and South Park recaps.

We’ve been trying to assess for awhile now which is less original: all our posts being headed with nothing more than the episode and series names, or Nip Tuck assigning characters names as there episode titles. It’s probably the former, but its a lot closer than you’d think.

This episode, much like 80% of all Nip Tuck episodes, revolved around the semi-fractious relationship between Christian and Sean. Needless to say it has run its course, so we didn’t really feel like watching the episode again as a refresher, so the details are a little less than stellar. Yes, we’re mailing it in, because the fact we still write about this show kind of makes our head spin, and if we feel compelled to write about something so remarkably unimpressive then we’re certainly not going to put forth any effort to it.

Where shattered dreams and tortured souls go to die.

But yes, Christian’s self-loathing is once again being projected onto Sean, partly because Sean is getting the most recognition out of this LA venture, but also because Christian is pushing forty (or is forty, can’t recall) and LA is a harsh, unforgiving mistress as represented by their publicist, who informs him that while in Miami he was unique and started at the proper age, given the scale of his new city and the time at which he is starting in it, he’ll never relive his Miami days. Christian, naturally, takes to this by posing in a soft porn magazine and offering to accompany Sean’s new relationship interest to the People’s Choice Awards.

All of this is paralleled in a really heavy-handed manner, when two Marilyn Monroe impersonators spark up a rivalry over customer privileges in front of Grauman’s theater. They’re both getting implants, and one of them levels with Christian about being relating to being rightfully entitled to something, while a rival callously interferes with your goals by trying to earn a living. Eventually, both Christian and Sean and the two Marilyn’s reconcile by episode’s end. The former over a near death experience for one of them on the operating table and the latter by finding out Sean’s ex-wife is now a lesbian. And we’re none the better for having watched this rehashed storyline yet again.

Not that we ever knew Julia was a lesbian, but when Portia De Rossi appeared in the opening credits and she was nowhere to be seen in the first fifty minutes, when Julia announced she was going to visit from New York, we weren’t terribly surprised when Portia emerged as Julia’s girlfriend. Honestly, we were hoping Patricia Carlson wouldn’t show up this season, which was unavoidable, but the character just grates and adds to the redundancy. I thought part of the reason they moved the series to LA was for a fresh start. As of now they have done nothing more but change the setting, and maybe cut back a bit in production costs. But we’re only two episodes in, an the same conflicts are being rehashed. This isn’t the first time we’ve suggested this, but I think it might be time to pull the plug on this series.

At least for the time being the two have reconciled. Somehow discovering that the woman the two of them have pined over for the past twenty years is now homosexual makes everything between them OK, and Sean was free to date the actresses he courts without interference from Christian: his best friend and colleague. As of now I’m just waiting on Matt to show up and delve into some good old vitriol and then it will officially be season four all over again.

While writing this recap, we’ve decided that three more episodes is a good litmus test, and the series still hasn’t demonstrated any character growth or improvement or even just a semblance of change, then we’ll simply save the series some grief and just bow out before they get a chance to be canceled. Given the previews for tonight’s episode, in which Christian is fondling Julia, we’re fairly pessimistic.

Well, god damn, that was pleasant. Has there ever been a more satisfying season finale to a comedy? My vote would be no, but my bias for JB Smoove as Leon being the highlight of the season is well documented. Even for all the mid-season blunders this year, that final montage essentially compensated for any perceived shortcomings. And, with a last quarter run, we still got about five quality episodes, two mediocre ones and three duds.

This finale, much like all Curb finales (sans season four, I couldn’t stand how much time they invested in showing us The Producers) ended a main storyline, but unlike past finales, this one could actually run into the following season. There stands a good chance The Blacks are still around in season seven, unlike Larry’s Broadway career or the restaurant or Larry’s search for his biological parents or “Aren’t You Evelyn?”, and that is considered around these parts as a high note.

Damn that Tivo guy.

The ending distracted from what was otherwise an entertaining finale. The movie theater experience, Larry’s flirting in the waiting room, the conversation with the administrator (”I’m not an inventor, so much as I am an improver”), the gargling bet with Jeff (”I would have gladly paid that fifty bucks because that was so enjoyable, but you ruined it”), the “Bin Laden” vs. “Ben Laden” and “Is Life too short?” conversations with Richard, “mopy” vs. “Moby” dick and Larry’s scaring off the potential neighbor were all comedy gems, and if these instances were spread out over three episodes we would consider all three episodes a success.

The gerbil rumor, however, was a little too far-fetched. It seems like someone as I’m sure intigrated in the Hollywood community as Larry is, would be above suspicion of such outrageousness. Also, the first thing that came to mind after Larry made up his affliction with the nurse was Mr. Slave and the Lemmingwinks episode. Which was far more unmerciful on our sensibilities, but its animated and prides itself on its outlandish storytelling. Curb prefers to ground itself in reality, or at least a version of it that represents Larry David’s charmed life. Everyone assuming he has a gerbil lodged in his colon doesn’t really hold up to that standard.

Still, I can’t believe this was a finale. The season seemed to come and go in the blink of an eye, and while I complained immensely about several of the episodes, it leaves me with nothing to write about on Mondays. This website might just might reflect a more typical blog for at least one day a week, with multiple, shorter posts throughout the course of the day. Kind of like an elongated version of the Wednesday links.

But not today, if this format is adopted then it will be reflected next week when everyone’s on vacation and unable to read it. Back with a Nip Tuck recap tomorrow.

You know, every Friday, we say we’re getting around to posting this late, and every Friday it is posted at relatively the same time. So we might as well just call this: “the time”. If it’s posted earlier, then just assume we had an extremely slow day at work.

This was a fantastic episode. The subject matter and settings seem a little off base and stretched thin, but somehow we don’t end up rolling our collective eyes at something we might do on a lesser series. Like, say, for instance, Street intentionally falling off the tour boat he, Riggins and Lyla are on after they advise him against surgery that could quite possibly kill him, only for him to pull an AJ Soprano and decide at the last moment he wants to live, then be washed to a random, miscellaneous island and wait for them to pick him up in Rggins’ truck as they all stare out at the sunset and Street declares he’s not going through with the surgery. Yeah, its moments like that separating this entertaining yet occasionally cringe inducing second season from the brilliant first season.

That’s not to say this is completely unfeasible, this series can’t sustain any longevity without a broadening range of material and themes. But so far we have a murder plot (which certainly isn’t over like I assumed last week) and now a road trip to Mexico to test the validity and progress of stem-cell research. And the original premise of this series is a high school football team struggles to overcome personal tragedy to succeed on the football field. The current story threads don’t necessarily seem to tie in with original motivation. That’s why we prefer the wider-range synopsis of an exposition of contemporary small town America. And even then, that doesn’t include high school homicide and road trips south of the border.

Still, we would be lying if we said we weren’t entirely engaged in this episode. The Smash-Saracen conflict, the final scene at the bar with Street, Riggins and Lyla “I need to go pray” Garrity (you all do, Lyla), coach’s fruitless efforts to rekindle his sex life were all humorous and/or compelling and greatly scripted and acted. All we were missing was some conniving from Buddy and some accurate play calling and post game celebration (there’s no way Landry is celebrated like that for being the victim of a penalty).

Put a shirt on, Lance

The Landry-Tyra storyline took an interesting turn with his father starting to intervene. Whoever plays his father is one of the better character actors this series has seen, and that is saying something. But if they limit the scope of this from a police investigation to something his Landry’s father keeps internal and manipulates the case to steer it into a dead end, then we’re willing to get on board. For the time being, though, we still remain skeptical. We were actually speechless with the manner in which Tyra shot down Landry. Is there ever a a situation in this girl’s life where she isn’t misunderstood?

Saracen and Smash are a regular McNabb-Owens, but since they’re in high school they’re is an actual reconciliation. The scene at Coach’s house pretty much epitomized Saracen’s resentful attitude towards everyone and everything this episode. He lashed out at coach (deservedly) Smash (questionable, since he’s been doing it for five episodes now) and Julie (absolutely, positively fucking deserved). The halftime speech was great, up until Landry delivered the cliche riddled tangent about the whole being greater than the sum of its parts. Jesse Plemmons is a great actor and deserves comparable writing. Though I did like his admission of being on the bottom of the totem poll withing the team. It just seems like that if someone, especially an outsider like Landry delivered a speech like that he’d be laughed out of the room. When he went into the game, though, I liked Saracen’s, “but the game isn’t over yet” plea, that’s more realistic of a reaction to his presence on the football team.

And finally, the coach’s courting efforts seemed appropriate for what I assume married like is like. You do everything you can to persuade your wife into some casual sex, and she retorts that she needs to “pump and dump” and asks you politely and indifferently not to touch her. Awesome.

This seems to be regarded as the best episode of the season, and while it was substantive and engaging, it still didn’t really measure up with the brilliance of last season. I also have a hard time believing that a grief stricken Landry would be completely carefree and reveling in his football glory. I mean, I don’t know what he should be doing about it, but when he isn’t in an isolated scene with Tyra, he seems completely aloof.

Great, great episode of IASIP this week. We needed some more zaniness with fewer caricatures like we got last week, and really, the overall tone of this episode seemed less harsh than usual, even though Dee beat up a chronically masturbating homeless man, and Dennis extorted money from non-expecting pedestrians while posing as a cop, that is small potatoes compared to previous episodes.

First off, because it was the first thing I noticed about this episode, the “What are you looking at Dicknose?” t-shirt that Mac was wearing before throwing on the Guardian Angels garb, was ripped straight from Teen Wolf. Stiles is wearing it when he and Scott Howard (let it be known that I originally thought Michael J Fox’s character’s name was “Marty”, before verifying with IMDB) are looking for his misplaced bag of marijuana in his parents garage. Jesus, just when I think this show couldn’t come up with anymore obscure references, they throw in a “What are you looking at dicknose?” t-shirt.

Mac and Dennis’s physical comedy was great this episode. This series, more than anything else we’ve ever watched relies heavily on non-verbal comedic approaches, and that was accentuated this episode. Mac working the Guardian Angels suit and Dennis impersonating the hard ass cop had me in stitches. Charlie doing Serpico (in the rerun afterwards, he began doing an “Attica” chant) and everyone’s contemptuous reaction to it was a notch below, but the outfit was so reminiscent of the classic Pacino film that I couldn’t help but laugh at it.

The vintage cop car looked real, and amidst all the great scenes packed into this one episode, the initial one at the hot dog stand stood out. Particularly when they told the vendor that Charlie was a pedophile and he threw him a nasty look, and it was a quick glance, but Charlie had a look of befuddlement like, “why is this guy staring at me like that?” Frank throwing the cop lingo around with such familiarity was probably the funniest thing Danny DeVito has done on this series. Also, I’m pretty sure I’m going as a Guardian Angel for Halloween next year, that or Omar Little. Gotta wear the beret.

Special Agent Jack Bauer was a little odd, but since Dennis is the closest thing on the series to a sociopath, or on any comedy for that matter, it makes sense he develops an attachment to a junkyard cat that was born in a pool of gasoline. It’s the first time we’ve ever seen Dennis sacrifice his own best interests for something he values sentimentally. Hopefully they don’t make a habit of writing his character like this, at least the cat ran away.

FNL recap later.

We’re not saying that this episode of The Office was shorter than any other half hour episode that we’ve seen over the course of the series, but when we wait until halftime of the Pistons-Bulls game to watch it, fast forward through the commercials and the episode was over before the 3rd quarter started; well, it barely registered on the radar as something we did last night. Still, we can’t complain about perceived limitedness anymore.

Length issues aside, it was a damn funny episode. Naturally we always assumed Dwight would naturally and gladly follow in Michael’s footsteps, just slightly more authoritarian if he ever was promoted to regional manager. “Survivor Man” suggested his rival is better fit for the position, and when you compare what Michael has in common with Jim and Dwight, he has much more with the former. About the only thing Dwight and Michael share is an undying loyalty to Dundler- Mifflin. Based on the final scene, it appears Michael’s passion for mass paper sales was learned and not ingrained upon employment, as it clearly is with Dwight.

But Jim’s sudden transformation with the party planning almost made me actually sympathize with Michael for a half hour, and realize that maybe its not him but his petty employees. Of course, to say Michael isn’t petty is a gross understatement, but at the very least it opened up the very real scenario that these people aren’t exactly tolerable or innocent when it comes office conflicts. Considering he’s always had somewhat of a condescending attitude about him, it was good to see reality smack Jim in the face, if entirely depressing. It doesn’t seem like anyone ever has intentions of staying somewhere like Dundler Mifflin for 10+ years, being told its almost inevitable is never comforting, even for the audience.

“Gee, thanks for the heads up, sweetheart.”

I also appreciated the fact that everyone realized how flawed Jim’s plan was from the beginning, but let him make his own mistakes. The only time Jim seemed aware of it was with Pam’s suggestive suggestion that they resolve the problem in the conference room. The final scene seemed like improv, don’t know why, possibly because both characters had their guard down, and their was less awkwardness. Maybe since they were bonding and it wasn’t overly dramatic (like it usually is when Jim takes Michael seriously), and therefore felt slightly less rehearsed? We never thought Michael would be one to admit that his “that’s what she said” joke rarely had any context, and Jim getting in on the act never entered my mind as a possibility, but there it is, and it was entertaining to watch.

The Survivor Man parody was well-orchestrated. But since we’ve never seen the series (we’re only aware of it) it reminded us of Into The Wild what with him having Dwight dropping him off and exhibiting some concern for him really took us back to the sometimes overwrought but definite risk-taking film. Also, for whatever reason, this reminded us of “The Fire” episode, in which they play desert island and Dwight says one of the items he would take with him is a survivor’s manual with a hole cut in it.

The story itself was somewhat needless. Steve Carell wrote this episode, apparently his first since the infamous “Casino Night”, and since he is the central character and he can’t entirely write himself out like Mindy Kaling (Kelly) or Paul Lieberstein (Toby) essentially did earlier this season. But it just seemed so far-fetched, once again, even for Michael to be so reactionary about being snubbed on the Dundler Mifflin camping trip. It also seems “far-fetched” isn’t really an appropriate term anymore, given that this degree of abnormal behavior is the norm this season, and it doesn’t ruin the episode for us, but man was it distracting from the office plot.

Highlights, they are immense:

-Michael chuckling at the concept of Phyllis rock climbing.

-Michael referring to Ryan’s camping trip as “Broken Mountain”, probably a little too “indie” for him.

-Dwight’s arsenal of weapons hidden all over the office. Particularly the samurai knives behind the water cooler.

-Loved the montage of quick cuts of Michael’s office party antics. Given Jim’s penchant for pranks on Dwight, I could see him devolving into this if he stays another ten years.

-”No…I think it’s a great idea” -Jim, after Pam asked him if he thought the communal birthday parties was a good idea.

-Creed’s insistence about the cake is something I’d figure he’d flip out about. This exchange had me in stitches:
“I want pie. A peach pie.”
“A birthday pie?”
“I want a nice cobbler”.

-”1, 2, 3, okay, everybody, so basically we shouldn’t do it”. -Jim, after asking to see a show of hands about the new birthday party concept.

-I mean, its a cake Toby, come on.” -Jim, adapting more of Michael’s persona than he’d be willing to admit, though I’d agree with Jim about.

-”Hey Andy, I have…some calls to make” -Jim’s dismissive to probably his least liked person in the office.

-”Michael’s a man of great death and passion, I’m not sure what he’s searching for out here…(pulls eggs out of birds nest) Lunch”. -Dwight, definitely quite frightening this episode.

In all, it was a quality twenty minutes. The foreshadowing of Jim’s character is eerily memorable, and has me questioning everything we thought we knew about the characters. Toby can be unlikable, Creed can be demanding and confrontational, Jim can be contemptuous and everyone else can be childish. If they were going to exhibit drama in this series, we’d prefer it be of this brand than relationship oriented.

FNL and It’s Always Sunny recaps later today.

This is coming late, so we’re going to turn it in the name of time frames and exhaustion:

Things we liked:

-Heroin Hero and that heroin induced bird.

-The regular mocking of video games that imitate real life talents. All while if the time spent playing the game was spent on learning the actual skill, it would be mastered ten times over by the game player.

-The parody of numerous fictional and non-fictional bio-films.

-Randy impotently trying to bond with his Stan.

-Stan having a moment of self-recognition while playing the racing game.

-Mick

-The kid that Stan was forced into a duo with, because he’s like a carbon copy of my roommate’s brother.

-The typical, impatient Denver fan response to Jay Cutler’s slower than expected professional development.

The things we didn’t like were few and far between, and consists of little more than nitpicks that have no bearing on the entertainment factor of the episode. This is the third episode I can recall where the characters make an attempt at forming a musical act: There was the “Fingerbang” episode mocking boy bands, then the race to go platinum where Cartman forms a Christian rock band. It’s actually four if you include the “Timmy” episode where he joined forces with Skyler and his band of misfits, but I don’t since it involved all peripheral characters.

Sorry for the half-ass job here, but when an episode was as enjoyable as this one, there is very little too write about. This is the second video game they’ve raked over the coals in the past couple of seasons (World of Warcraft being the first victim), we can only hope that Halo is next on the radar.

Needlessly brilliant episode Last Thursday. We don’t recall these early, seemingly inconsequential ousters being so entertaining, but we’ll take it. Onto the recap…

Pre-credits scene, we open at Fei Long and they are rehashing the Sherea departure, and JR is somewhat disappointed about the verbal berating he took from Courtney and Sherea. Courtney hates everyone, which sounds like its more her problem than all of her tribemate’s. We don’t really like anyone here either, but we realize it’s us.

Back from the credits, PG is assuring James that they “like” him, and think he’s “cool”, probably because they realize that since throwing away their throwing plan, they are essentially at his will, and they don’t even realize he has the idol and knows about the second one. You either have to commit to a plan or avoid it altogether. Of course, given he has an idol none of them know about, one of them would have been sequestered in a hotel somewhere by now.

With his tribe at the riverbank, James breaks off the first one and its a piece of wood with no wording on it, so he picks off the second one and it’s what he’s looking for. He doesn’t get a chance to put the fake wooden plaque back before his tribe returns.

Back at Fei-Long, Courtney is still livid about everyone not voting the way she wants, then complains that they pander to JR more than she appreciates. She is taking it entirely too personally, and Todd lets the mediator in him slip away and starts trying to rationalize with her, irrationally. Todd is talking entirely too much again, and in a long-winded explanation claims he needs his “numbers”, which JR is a part of, then forgets he’s on national television and calls her a bitch with some disdainful overtones. So much for that magnanimous demeanor.

Erik and Jaime find the loose piece of wood pried off the fixture and contemplate whether it’s the immunity idol or not, they keep it just in case.

At night Jaime rummages through James’ things, and this always bothers me. It’s dark, and she feels two pieces of wood, one in each leg of his sweatpants. She assumes it to be two idols, and at this point I’m not sure why she would think her idol is still valid, because why would James still be holding onto a fake idol. But, either way, it doesn’t really hurt to try with the pathetic looking thing she has. Really, it just wreaks of desperation, and that’s kind of where they are right now.

James recognizes that the faux-idol is nowhere to be seen, and he rightly assumes that one of them is under the impression they’re holding the idol. He ponders the prospect of her pulling an invalid idol at Tribal Council, and it is somewhat amusing to ruminate on.

At IC, they merge after a short tangent from Probst. Jaime exasperates that she’s excited to have the idol. They get new black buffs and are staying at Fei-Long’s camp, since they’ve won the majority of the challenges, Probst sends them off to a feast and emphasizes that the “GAME NEVER STOPS”. It seems pretty transparent, but after not eating anything in addition to all the distractions…well, I’d like to think I’d read through the lines there, but I probably wouldn’t.

They eat, drink and are generally merry. They watch a Chinese contortionist show or something. Amanda pontificates a string of run of the mill Survivor platitudes, her and Todd share an obscene look (We get it kids, you’re always scheming) and JR makes a couple lewd remarks about the flexibility of the performers. That pretty much sums up the reward “experience”. Oh, and everything about Courtney reminds me why we’ve turned down several job offers in New York.

JR likes his position and as long as Courtney’s around he’s always up for consideration. Courtney touches Frosti in an innocently provocative manner, he does not begrudge her this show of affection.

They toss around the idea of new team names, they throw around some weird jokes that are essentially along the lines of “are buffs are black, and so is James”, and “Zhan Hu’s buffs were yellow, and they had two east Asian members”, they have to be able to cast better than this. Anyhow, they come up with the tribe name “black fighting wind”. I’m not even getting into the details as to how they arrived at this, because what little detriment it is to my health to type them out, they’re too asinine to justify it.

Probst spontaneously shows up at camp and its to hold the IC. And, sure enough, it’s a memory challenge about their feast. Long story short, it comes down to Frosti (who claimed to have a pedestrian memory) and Jaime, and the former wins immunity.

Back from IC, PG tries to chit chat with James, which, he’s really not the type, or so it seems. She asks if they’re “still cool” and as vague as that is, the context of the conversation I cannot illustrate its true vagueness. Literally, that could mean anything. James of course goes straight to Todd about Jaime’s fake idol, and they both chuckle over it, as does Amanda. They all want Jaime out because she’s the only legitimate threat but also consider Courtney because she’s so off the cuff, James also calls her a bitch, which is not terribly surprising.

I figured throwing this picture up is well advised, since you could have watched this whole season and still not know who Frosti is.

JR wants PG gone because he kind of enjoys her company, then makes veiled threats toward Todd about his inability to win if JR feels he is slighted. Everyone is slighted in this game sans one player, JR. At least to some extent. Speaking of bitches, Todd doesn’t really give a favorable interview here, and everyone in this season really gives you a reason to dislike him.

PG and Jaime are going back and forth about their best move. I don’t understand, from their end, why regardless of whether or not they have the idol, why wouldn’t they grab their remaining four original Zhan-Hu members (the two of them, Frosti and Erik) and approach Courtney about the prospect of getting rid of JR? Because she’s pretty militant about it. At the very least they could force a tie, and that’s better than where they stand. Maybe they did and it was edited out because Courtney stood PAT, but it seems unlikely for some reason. I mean, they were relying on James, but after what they tried to do to him and Aaron, how delusional do you have to be to believe anything he says? When the first conversation you have with someone in Survivor upon waking up in the morning is you asking, “Do you think we’re loyal?” And his response is, “I think you’re loyal to each other”; that is generally not a man to be trusted. Or at least that’s how I was raised.

Jaime tells virtually everyone, including Todd and Frosti about the idol, which is a bad idea regardless of where she stands with the HII. In fact, it would be a much better plan if she didn’t have what she thought was an idol, and was attempting to throw the opposing alliance off guard with their vote. Essentially, sacrifice someone in her alliance for her own benefit.

JR expresses his desire to get rid of PG beforehand, because he likes her, which has some sick twisted brilliance to it in an self-reverse psychology type way. Like he doesn’t trust his judgment around her. And our response here is: her, really?

At TC, there’s a little tension in which JR pontificates about Courtney being a threat because no one will emphasize voting her out due to her ineptness at challenges. But he doesn’t quite articulate it all that well. PG rallies against him just so JR is dragged through the mud again (not that he doesn’t deserve it), and if I were him it would be a little unsettling. It seems like when your name circulates this much at every TC, I can’t think of a reason to “like your position”. They vote, Jaime votes for JR, Frosti gives a peace sign and we see Courtney write a “J”…Jaime interrupts the proceedings to play what she thinks might be the Hidden Immunity Idol. Probst explains the rules of the idol, then throws the thing in the fire after announcing she is mistaken. There’s a smattering of chuckles, the votes are read:
JR
Jaime
Jaime
JR
JR
Jaime
Jaime
Jaime
Jaime
Probst anoints her the first member of the jury, which means we have three contestants at the final vote (what with the even number of jury votes otherwise). Not a terribly surprising episode, and I really can’t remember this much deliberation and drama over such a predictable voting. Makes for a good season, I suppose.

In her parting words, Jaime concedes that she is too nice for the game and that James wasn’t very trustworthy. I really have no idea what she was expecting, nor do I think she realizes how little he actually considered siding with her. Also, too nice? She conspired to have him booted by throwing challenges, and only changed her mind when her original plan didn’t work, in addition to rummaging through his private things…Yeah, you’re a real fucking sweetheart.

Tonight: Todd out thinks himself again and obviously regrets giving not one, but two idols to James, and wants to vote him out (with two idols? Clearly not going to happen, given that he’s already a threat in the physical IC’s doesn’t help either) and there is seemingly some decent strategy.

South Park recap coming later. It was semi-topical, at least in my household.

Didn’t watch Nip Tuck last night, though we did see American Gangster and, while it was certainly an entertaining flick and revolved heavily around symbolic gestures about American capitalism, and told the story of two profoundly unique individuals, both stories were so riveting that they could have been broken down into two separate films, each about the same length as the two and a half hours we saw last night. There were just too many leaps of logic for me to be awestruck with it, which is what I was preparing for given the talent involved (Crowe, Denzel, Scott and Zallian). If forced to give a rating at gunpoint we’d go with a 7/10.

Onto a special WGA strike version of the links…

Doesn’t it seem like they could strike and not picket?

Here’s what we’ve been looking for! A succinct yet detailed synopsis of how virtually every series will be effected by the strike.

Several showrunners, presidential candidates and actors were out picketing/speaking out with the WGA recently, still probably means little to nothing in terms of getting a new deal, but it’s a small moral victory at least. When Marc Cherry backs you, then the world will know your struggle.

Lost only has eight episodes complete for their pending season. Considering how plot heavy the series is, that could be an issue. The American audience is fickle and they like things to happen quickly and abruptly with their television, otherwise they get bored and eventually disinterested. No show embodies this mentality more so than Lost. So if they have an engorging hiatus mid-season, that could really cut into their viewership.

Sounds like the The Office is just collapsing in light of this strike, as I’m sure many series’ are, this series might not survive it given all the film careers the cast is certainly seeking.

Further evidence of Jon Stewart genuinely being a “good guy”: He’s paying his writing staff out of pocket for two weeks. This reminds me of The Simpsons episode where Apu kept giving his wife really extravagant gifts for Valentine’s Day, and every other husband in Springfield resented him for it because there wives felt comparatively under-appreciated. Congrats, Jon, on making your fellow late night counterparts who probably make ten times as much money as you look like self-involved louts.

Leno has decided to picket with his writing staff and is playing the humble man, Steve Carell is doing likewise, not sure if this is earth shattering or anything, but there it is.

With an excess of newfound time on his hands and a bevy of new material, Larry David has reportedly been contemplating doing two more seasons of Curb. This, in a currently downtrodden industry, is some good news.

And finally, over 32 million people watched me lose a large quantity of money on Sunday during the Colts-Patriots game. That is the power of the NFL my friends, its like a fourth branch of Government. One question to ponder for the rest of the day: Why does the Orlando Sentinel give a shit about this?

Back tomorrow with Survivor and South Park recaps.

Well, we’re back, if not against our innate instincts. Mainly we’ve returned because of the new location, which strikes us as random, unexplainable, lazy, but necessary. Speaking of strikes, maybe the writers work stoppage will put this series in hiatus sooner than later, or maybe all they’re episodes have been written already. We don’t know, but we’re ready for the highs and the lows of a standard Nip Tuck season. All the absurd themes and settings be damned, we are fully committed and refuse to be deterred. So, with that, the fifth season got underway last Tuesday, and it seemed like it was three hours long.

Also, we did a half-ass scene for scene recap, because there is so much nonsense that happens in everyone of these episodes it’s just easier that way.

State of the art facilities and a poorly written opening, lots of back story and crappy subtext like, “you can’t dominate me, never could, never will”. Christian is about as natural of a basketball player as I imagine Rob Schneider is, seriously they might as well have super-imposed a smurf image on the screen.

Liz is there, no explanation as to why, I suppose because it’s convenient.

Financial woes, Sean is –ooh, Tia Carerre cameo according to the credits, she’s making the rounds this TV season, her and people of her ilk are the unintended victim of this writers strike– being fucked with financial obligations to his estranged family that hates him for no reason.

We get one of these annoying, generic montages that make me hate television as Sean and Christian get ready to go out and recruit new clients, they get the brush off since all the women in the town seem attached. “Semen in a whore house” is Christians manner of putting it. They immediately go up to the only homely looking woman in this bar, and immediately introduce themselves as surgeons. We even get a no so veiled Lindsay-Dina Lohan reference. Anyhow, said homely woman is an agent and schools them on the way of the city of angels.

Ooh, how meta. There going to be technical advisers on a show about plastic surgeons to boost they’re reputation and checking account. They apparently think they’re better than the show they’re portraying. And they are, but not in a landslide. Christian has his half black son there, either forgot about that or they’ve sprung it on us unexpectedly. The name of the series they will be working on? “Hearts and Scalpels”.

Gawker media blog reference, Defamer being the obvious guess, and you’d have guessed right. The reference comes from a masochistic actor whose mistress inflicts visible wounds on him. They do it on the spot, bitterly, because apparently they thought there would be no sexual deviants in LA. The showrunner is a bit of a stereotype played by Oliver Platt, and why the hell he even bothers with this, I’m not sure. Apparently the Casanova budget wasn’t quite what it seemed. Anyhow, he’s heavily abused by the male lead on the series, Aidan Starr. And I’m sure its something Christian is going to take advantage of, and Sean will begrudgingly follow along with.

In fact, they hark back to the story where they graphed skin from a woman’s vagina and put it on her lips (which were burned in a fire) but do it behind her husband’s back, since he had some sort of objection to performing oral sex. Platt, upon hearing this story, is finagled into offering them “producer credits and the occasional line”, to which he agrees.

Hey, Carly Summers, the character awarded with the episode title, is a forty year old actress reluctant to get plastic surgery, and the actress playing her is either pushing thirty or had extensive work done. Either way, she’s gorgeous and Christian actually advises against having any work done, they share a look and the agent is perturbed.

Oh, wait, hold on a second, he actually intends to take her out and convince her to get an unlimited amount of plastic surgery. Sean resents how he always gets to partake and the enjoyable parts of the operation under the guise of him, “being the salesman and Sean the talent”. Um, I’m not sure I want a salesman taking a knife to my insides.

Sean gets a call from Liz, apparently the masochist businessman had his mistress (played by Tia Carerre) in for an emergency session. She takes her job incredibly seriously, to say the least.

Christian is post-coitus with Carly and she is self-conscious around him, though somewhat reluctant to admit it. He tears her apart through a photo on the wall, pinpointing the year it was taken by saying, 18 years, they didn’t airbrush back them like they do now”. He draws all over her picture and it’s incredibly uncomfortable to watch. Harsh, man. You can see the pain in her eyes.

On set, Freddy is a wreck and Aidan (along with his costar) is obnoxious without being funny. Christian confronts the actor and Sean backs him with some techniques he learned from Tia Carerre to get Aidan’s attention. This is clearly going to be one of those themes that Nip Tuck hammers home for an entire season.

Now in the consulting session, Carly is agreeing to extensive surgery and they’re all signing confidentiality agreements and it cuts straight to them working on her face lift intertwined with Christian getting microplugs after Aidan pointed out his hair loss around his temples. It might as well be one of a dozen replayed scenes over the course of the past four seasons.

Sean is reading a letter from Matt, whose still with Kimber and seems at peace, at least from the tone in which he narrates the letter. Christian got an infection from the operation, which leads to Sean lamenting the distance from his family, and says, “Maybe we should have went somewhere that values substance over style”, and I suppose it’s partly true. They have a frank discussion about their intentions in LA. Christian is much more into the concept than Sean, as would be expected.

Problems arise on set about FCC issues and how the actress can refer to her operation. This character is grating. Seriously, quit fucking writing her like this. Apparently she stays in character at all times because she acts the same way.

Masochist businessman turned down the promotion and recommends they move back to Miami “while they still have their souls intact”, because, you know, Miami is so grounded and all.

I’m just fast forwarding through all the show scenes now, apparently Christian is actually into following it now. Oh, wait, they have cameos but Christian was edited out, and Sean’s line made it past the cutting room floor. Now Christian wants to drop the series, but while at a coffee stand, everyone recognizes him, which immediately brings on requests for business cards and such. He is now looking on at Sean’s surgeries. Aidan thanks Sean in the most narcissistic manner possible for chastising him, calls Christian, Christopher.

This plot is moving so incredibly, fast, and they are already at odds about whether to do the series or not. This is all so bizarre.

Christian sees Carly after her surgery, and she seeks some sort of assurance that she needed the surgery, he does not offer any such assurance.

Tia Carrere offers her services to Sean after seeing him on television. He initially refuses them, but its obvious he’s intrigued, since he has all this undeserved power an whatnot.

Sean phones it into a tabloid that Carly Summers just went under extensive plastic surgery and is sure to name drop, because he’s envious of Sean’s newfound fame. According to the previews his ruse is ineffective.

….Aaand scene. This is really poorly written and unedited, sorry for any and all oversights/grammatical errors/repetitiveness; but I’m about on my way to see American Gangster, and couldn’t really care less about Nip Tuck at the moment.

Back tomorrow with some links.

We meant to get to the Nip Tuckrecap this morning, but our dipshit roommate claims he “had” to play Halo 3, so we caught about fifteen minutes of it and have yet to finish. We’ll get to it later today, for what its worth, the episode jumped quickly into the plot and was pretty inconsistent on symmetry.

But since this is a television blog, and TV sets to be the hardest hit from the writers strike, we figured we should at least comment on the situation. For the most part, it sounds like late night talk shows will be effected more so than anyone else. Yes, I know, it’s hard to believe that Letterman, Leno, Stewart and the rest do not write all of their own material. But it’s true.

As for your series’ currently in season, it sounds like there is a lot of variance from show to show, depending on how production is formatted. For instance, there are some series’ that finish writing, filming and editing before the first episode of a season even airs ( i.e. The Wire, something this website is extremely grateful for). Then there are some that stay well ahead of their airdate, but continue filming and editing throughout the better part of the season. From what it sounds like, virtually every series that continues production throughout their season will run out of fresh episodes by February of 2008. Series’ that begin airing midway through the television season will be able to make it about a third of the way through their upcoming season should this white collar squabble go unresolved.

There was once a poll that surveyed Americans assumptions about who’s responsible for the writing process in Hollywood, and 40% of us believed actors wrote their own lines (sorry, no link, which makes the claim completely invalid, but this is a blog that no one reads, so whatever). This number seems almost unfathomable to us, but if one really didn’t want to know the basic constructs of how a film or television series is made, then it is really easy to avoid. But still, 40%? Have these people heard Paul Walker talk? That’s not to say all actors are incapable of conjuring up their own thoughts, there are several intelligent actors who simply don’t write because: A) They don’t have too, and B) Writing a good, thought-provoking screenplay is really fucking hard.

The point being, for all the celebrity worship that runs rampant through this country, Hollywood and the entertainment industry don’t exist without the WGA. While their complaints might seem trivial and entitled to us, relative to the rest of the Hollywood landscape the writer is the proverbial whipping boy, mainly because he/she isn’t in charge of delegating or investing money, and his/her name is rarely a box office draw, giving them very little leverage. But the foundation of any great product in Hollywood starts with the writer, and this is wherein the problem lies. They want their contribution to be compensated as such (percentages of DVD and internet revenue), and the studios already feel the writers are amply compensated given how little writers are marketed.

It looks like the studios are hell bent on breaking the union, and the union is adamant in their demands, so this thing is expected to unfold over the course of several months, if not up to or over a year. Essentially, we’re content as long as there is no delay in the debut of The Wire’s next season. Between that and Survivor, we can just add on older series on DVD or turn this into a film or sports blog. Because we’re not watching any more fucking reality TV to keep this thing afloat. That, in the midst of all this uncertainty, is unflappable.

Nip Tuck recap later today.